Joining Forces
by De Engi
Summary: When the 2nd in a series of murdermutilations occurrs, Nick & Sara travel to Detroit to assist in the case.


This is an original work of fiction. All characters, events, and situations pertaining to the CSI: Detroit portion of this story are my own. All characters, events, and situations pertaining to CSI (Las Vegas) belong to others, and I make no claims upon them. I'm not making any money off this, either.

  


Author's note: Although the town of Kingsley, Michigan is real, the people and some of the details are fictitious, and are not meant to be derogatory.  
  
  
CSI:

Crime Scene Investigations

  


JOINING FORCES

(Spin-off for CSI: DETROIT)

By De Engi

  
  


Tag

Detroit, Michigan

May 12, 2003

  


The party at the Greektown Casino had run late. Such parties don't always, but this one had seen an unusual amount of wheeling and dealing, with several multi-million-dollar contracts being negotiated. It was a black-tie affair, of course, the men suave in their tuxedos, the women elegant in their long gowns. And the women were _dressed_ - as opposed to the "undress" popular at Hollywood Events; this was business, after all. Afterwards, the doctor (who had been at the party more "to be seen" than anything) had gone into the casino proper to do some gambling. And maybe pick up some one-night-stand action from the throng of women who enjoyed being attended to by a rich plastic surgeon - even if for only one night. However, despite his efforts, he ended up eventually picking up his BMW from the valet and driving home alone. Even though he drove through bad neighborhoods to get home, the doctor never worried; he was kept safe in his bubble of ignorance by his contempt of "the little peepul", whom he truly believed would never dare to harm the likes of _him_. After all, he was a well-known and respected plastic surgeon.

He should have known; there is no such thing as "safe" in a major metropolitan area like Detroit. Not even for him.

He stopped his "beemer" at a red light. He tiredly rubbed his eyes, thinking only of his nice, soft bed in his nice, big house, grateful he had no procedures the next day. Or, today, rather, as it was just dawn.

Suddenly, from out of the lightening gray shadows, a figure appeared beside the car, cloth in one hand, sign stating "will wash windshields for food" in the other. The doctor, disgusted at the filthy creature marking up his gleaming BMW, trod on the accelerator, revving the engine as if to jack-rabbit away, hoping to scare the bum away from his very expensive car.

It didn't work.

Instead, the figure pulled a small sledge-hammer from beneath the ragged layer of clothes, and swung hard at the driver's side window. The window shattered.

As the light turned green, and the dawn slowly brightened the sky, a lone masculine scream, ending in a gurgle, echoed along the empty street.

  


Act I

Las Vegas, Nevada

  


Dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome Nick Stokes shuffled into the conference room more like a man of 100 than the early 30's that was his real age.

"Hey, Nicky, you ok?" Dark-skinned Warrick Brown asked, amused.

"You look like something the cat dragged in - and back out again." Strawberry-blond Catherine Willows added.

"Just a little parasailing accident." Nick told them. "Don't everybody smother me with concern." He finished sarcastically.

"Parasailing accident?" Warrick asked.

"Yeah, gust 'o wind, rough landing." Nick clarified.

Just then, Gil Grissom, night-shift supervisor, entered the room. Salt-and-pepper-haired, but with a still-boyish face, Grissom hated being a supervisor; hated the politics of his position. However, after the demotion of Jim Brass, the sheriff had decided to reward Grissom - or punish him, depending upon one's point of view - by making him the boss. And sometimes he hated his job. Like now.

"Well, I've got some bad news for you, Nick, Sara." Grissom stated without preliminary. Best to get it out of the way immediately, he figured. "You remember the case of Thomas Hilliard about four weeks ago?" Nick and Sara both thought about it a second, sifting through their memories.

"Yeah. Murder of a lawyer. Had his balls and his right ring finger cut off." Nick re-capped briefly in his slight Texas drawl. He grimaced in remembered sympathy - a knee-jerk 'ow-that-must-really-hurt' reaction.

"It's a cold case." Sara added.

"Not anymore." Grissom told them. "Homicide in the early hours of this morning with the same M.O. Testicles and right ring finger removed." He waited a beat before delivering the punch-line. "In Detroit."

"What?" Sara said after a second, not sure she'd heard right. Grissom gave her a raised-eyebrow look, amused and vaguely offended that she disbelieved him.

"Murder. In Detroit. Difference is, it was a doctor this time, and he was murdered in his car." Nick shook his head.

"They call the Fibbies in?" Nick asked, none too pleased by the prospect. The "Fibbies" - the FBI - hadn't treated the Las Vegas CSI's very well the last two times they'd had dealings. Special Agent Rick Culpepper wasn't on anyone's Christmas list.

"Not yet." Grissom told him. "They like the idea about as much as we do. They've asked us for our voluntary assistance on the case. Specifically, the head of their day shift asked for you, Nicky, to come to Detroit and bring all the evidence with you." Before he'd even finished speaking, however, Nick was grinning in anticipation.

"Well, hell, ole' Sappy's got as much a beef with the Feds as we do, though for different reasons. It's no wonder he wants me to come out there instead 'o them."

"Ole' Sappy?" Grissom asked, eyebrows raised. Nick's grin got wider.

"Doctor Mark Ferber. He was a frat brother of mine. We still keep in touch." Nick told him.

"Wait a minute." Tall, dark-haired Sara Sidle said, "Doctor Markus Ferber? The well-known botanist and forensic palynologist? _That_ Doctor Markus Ferber? He was a frat brother of yours? "

"Well, yeah, that's what I said." Nick replied with a grin. "Something wrong with that?"

"Well, yeah," Sara mimicked him. "You call a renowned scientist like him _Sappy_?" Nick shrugged.

"Well, Grissom's known as the bug-guy. Sappy's a botanist who supposedly has plant sap in his veins instead 'o blood. So...Sappy."

"Did you hang that on him?" Warrick asked.

"Nah, that was Digger, the archeology major." Nick told him.

"Sappy, Digger." Sara recited. "Obvious, much?"

"So what was your college nick-name, Nick?" Catherine asked.

"Um, well." Nick ran a hand through his hair as he fidgeted, looking embarrassed.

"Well?" Sara prompted.

"Well, it was...Pinky."

"Pinky?" Warrick asked disbelievingly as the others snickered.

"Yeah, well, one of the guys' sisters was a cosmetology student at a local Beauty School. I dated her once. We got drunk and went over to the school, where she dyed my hair pink."

"Well, the punk look _is_ all the rage." Grissom said cautiously.

"Uh, well, see, um...that wasn't the hair she dyed pink." Nick delivered the punch-line through a deep blush.

There was silence for a second. Then they all got it.

Sheriff Mobley walked into the conference room to find his most brilliant team laughing hysterically.

As the laughter died down, Gil glanced at Nick, surprised he'd told the story at all, much less after so little coaxing. He was surprised to see a look of satisfaction on the younger man's face. And suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, Grissom realized something about Nick that had never occurred to him before. Nick didn't just accept the teasing his co-workers gave him; he didn't even simply encourage it. He _instigated_ it - to boost morale. And, watching the lines of stress fade from the faces of his team, even if only for a few minutes, Gil was glad Nick had a strong enough ego to do something like this.

"Uh, what's this all about?" Mobley asked, not happy at the childish antics.

"Just a little stress-relief." Grissom told him tersely, then hurriedly got down to business before Mobley could ask for details. "Are you here about the request from Detroit?"

"Yes." Mobley replied. "I'm inclined to grant the request for Stokes as evidence custodian and Sidle as alternate, only because this case is liable to become high-profile real quick, and I want us taking at least _some_ of the credit for solving it. Ideally, I'd actually prefer to send you, Gil. You know, renowned Entomologist working side by side with the equally renowned Botanist. However, you've got the Calvas trial coming up tomorrow, and even you can't guarantee you'll solve this one by then. Besides, Stokes and Sidle aren't irreplaceable here. You are. It won't matter if they're gone awhile." Grissom raised an eyebrow at that.

"Well, no one here is irreplaceable. But no one here is expendable, either. Not to mention the fact it was originally their case anyway." Grissom told the man with annoyance. Brian Mobley was becoming more and more obviously obsessed with appearances as he put more effort into his bid for mayor. However, Mobley realized this particular battle was too minor to worry about.

"Be that as it may, get the evidence and all the proper forms together for Stokes and Sidle to take with them to Detroit. I've signed all the proper paperwork from my end, and they'll be leaving in three hours." Mobley handed Grissom a file containing the signed forms, and left.

"Three hours?" Sara yelped as she leapt to her feet. "Geez, I'm glad he gave us some notice!"

"You two go home and pack, we'll get the paperwork together here." Grissom told Sara and Nick as they both hurried out the door.

An hour and a half later, Nick came into the conference room lugging the box of evidence and a duffel bag with several changes of clothes chosen after getting an on-line weather report for the coming week in Detroit. He'd been struck by the rapidity with which the weather seemed to change there; they were predicting cold and rainy tomorrow morning, and twenty degrees warmer and sunny that afternoon. In fact, the situation was worse than that, according to a conversation Nick'd had with Mark just two weeks ago - Mark's actual comment had been: If you don't like the weather, wait fifteen minutes, and it'll change. Or better yet, just cross the street.

Sara was already there, suitcase on the floor beside her.

Grissom had already handed her a folder full of forms, which she'd checked through quickly, not because she distrusted Grissom, but because she wanted to be thorough. Even Grissom never claimed to be perfect.

"Form 5527/22, Forms 5527/17A and B, Form 5527/24, Original Incident Complaint Report form..." Sara sighed at the number of documents needed to maintain proper chain of custody. "Looks like they're all here." She confirmed to Grissom.

"Catherine will drive you to the airport." Grissom told them. "There are three seats reserved in coach: two for you, one for the evidence."

"Gee, I know where _we_ stand - we're footing the bill for the comfort of the evidence, not the people." But Nick was half-joking; he'd expected no better. Grissom chuckled drily in agreement.

Forty minutes later, Catherine parked her black Tahoe and helped Nick and Sara lug their baggage into the terminal. All of them bemoaned the end of curb-side check-ins since the September 11 incident, but didn't complain. They understood the need for heightened security, and counted themselves lucky it wasn't worse.

The flight itself was uneventful. While the majority of the passengers slept, Nick and Sara went over the Hilliard file in order to refresh their memories on the details of the case.

_Thomas Hilliard, thirty-five years old, short and stocky, with brown hair and eyes, and wearing a very expensive silk suit, was whistling happily as he emerged from his car in the driveway of his three-story home in one of the most affluent neighborhoods of Las Vegas. He practically danced his way to the front porch while he pulled out his key and unlocked the door. Still whistling and dancing, Thomas tossed his keys carelessly into a glass bowl on a black lacquered end table that stood next to the door. Thomas had reason to be happy - he'd just won one of his biggest cases, a divorce involving a lot of expensive antique furniture. He'd shredded the soon-to-be ex-wife for her extra-marital affairs, leaving her sobbing on the witness stand, and homeless - an all-but-unheard-of occurrence, but he'd arranged for the case to be heard by a judge who'd divorced his own wife for the same reason. But, in any case, he'd won the case for the husband - and won himself a hefty contingency fee._

_ Now all he wanted to do was eat dinner and watch television before he had to prepare a brief for the next case._

_ Unfortunately, someone else had other plans._

_ As Thomas walked into the kitchen, someone slightly shorter than the lawyer's five-foot-nine had tossed a medium-thickness, cotton twine around his neck. He'd fought, some, but eventually succumbed to the lack of oxygen, and fell to his knees. Ligature marks had dug into his neck, but no petechial hemorraghing marked his eyeballs; he'd lost consciousness, but was still alive. His captor had then dragged him, with difficulty, up the stairs, leaving drag marks on the carpet, fibers in the heels of this shoes, and dislocated shoulders from the rough jerks it had taken to get him up the steps. He'd been dragged into his own bedroom, and up onto the bed. There, he'd been tied with heavier cotton rope - arms over his head with the rope through the decorative cut-outs of the wooden headboard; legs spread, one ankle tied to each post of the footboard. He'd also been gagged with duct tape from his own garage._

_ His captor had waited until he regained consciousness before cutting off his scrotum and right ring finger with a knife from his own cutlery block._

_ Unfortunately for the perpetrator, Hilliard's blood had made the knife very slippery, and it cut, unnoticed, through the finger of the latex glove._

_ Thomas Hilliard had wanted desperately to faint from the pain, but it was not to be, for, contrary to popular belief, a person can not faint from pain, as adrenalin is pumped into the bloodstream, forcing the person to stay conscious. The most one can hope for is to faint from adrenalin overload. But, in this case, that was not to be, either. Thomas Hilliard, bled to death in excruciating pain, conscious to the last._

_ His captor then placed the knife on the dresser, foraged through the jewelry box on top of the dresser, and took only one thing - his fraternity ring._

_ Thomas Hilliard's murderer had then grabbed the knife, and exited the house._

_ No one saw anything._

_ He'd been discovered by the maid the next morning. _

  


"Ew." Sara said. "I forgot how icky this case was."

"_You_ think it's bad?" Nick answered. "How do ya think _I_ feel. I kept having the urge to wear a cup for the duration of the case. In fact, now that he's struck again, I've got that urge all over again." Sara snickered.

"Ok, now, what about the Detroit murder?" She asked. Nick sighed and pulled out the file of the new homicide.

  


_His attacker had broken into his house earlier in the evening, and had taken three things: a roll of duct tape from his "junk drawer", a knife from the kitchen, and his fraternity ring from the plate on the night stand next to the bed. The break-in was not discovered until the police investigating his murder had gone looking for possible information. _

_Doctor Gabriel Ditmer's car was driven to an abandoned warehouse by his captor. Gabriel himself sat unconscious in the front seat, the medium-weight cotton twine used to strangle him unconscious hung loosely around his throat. His captor had dragged the man, with difficulty, out of the car and up the front steps. The lock on the door had been cut previously in preparation, although, unbeknownst to the perpetrator, a sharp rusty point had poked a hole in one latex glove, and a fingerprint had been left on the door. Gabriel had then been dragged, arms jerked unmercifully, into the cavernous building. His arms were tied to a heavy pipe and his legs, spread-eagled, to other pipes. The actual murder itself duplicated that of Thomas Hilliard: gagged with duct tape, and scrotum and right ring finger cut off while still alive and conscious. He'd bled to death._

"I think every guy working on this case is gonna be wearing cups before this is all over." Sara said, only half-joking. She found it amusing, but also had sympathy for the violations to the delicate portion of the male anatomy. If it were a case of women having their breasts cut off, she'd be seriously thinking of investing in a steel brassiere about now.

Nick was still studying the files, but now he was comparing the two, searching for something.

"What've you got?" Sara wondered.

"They both had their fraternity rings stolen." Nick replied absently.

"Yeah, Hilliard was Psi Delta Epsilon at University of Nevada. We already tried to investigate that, but there was nothing unusual that happened while he was there so we couldn't really do anything with it." Sara reminded him, frustrated. 

"Yeah," Nick said, "But now we've got two of these, and I'm just wondering which fraternity Ditmer – yeah, here it is: Psi Delta Epsilon, University of Nevada, Las Vegas chapter." Nick looked up at Sara with excitement.

"Both vics were in the same fraternity at the same college?" Sara asked, her own hopes rising, but wanting confirmation.

"Yeah." Nick told her. "And they were close enough to the same age that maybe they were there at the same time."

"So, someone's killing the members of Psi Delta Epsilon."

  


Act II

  


Detroit, Michigan.

143 Square miles of extreme ethnic diversity and extreme class differences, Detroit is home to Polish, Mexican, Chinese, Arabic, African; to the very rich and the desperately poor - where three-story, turn-of-the-century mansions exist within a few blocks of burned-out shells inhabited by families of ten or more.

Built on a swamp, Detroit boasts one of the biggest salt mines and some of the worst roads.

Detroit is also home to one of the best crime labs in the country - or was, at any rate. It's reputation had - slipped - in the past few years, and was now battling public scandals beginning to rival San Fransisco's.

Mark hadn't exaggerated about the weather, either, Nick realized. They'd flown through a rain squall on the way into the airport, but, as they emerged from the gate into the terminal, the stars were clearly visible through the big windows.

Nick scanned the almost-empty airport for his friend. 

"Hey, Pinky!" A man about Nick's height, sporting auburn hair with a beard and mustache and wearing a business suit hailed the Las Vegas CSI. Nick broke into a wide grin.

"Hey, Sappy!" Nick answered the hail. He shoved the evidence box into Sara's arms, then strode towards the other man. The two men reached each other, and Nick grabbed him in a back-slapping hug. Sara wondered why men felt the need to do that; was it the hug version of squeezing during a handshake: establishing dominance by who back-slaps the hardest? Sara merely shook her head, smiling in fond resignation of the antics of the human male. She took the opportunity to size up the other man. He seemed a bit...soft and bookish-looking.

Nick released the other man quickly, and turned back towards his co-worker.

"Sara, this is Doctor Markus Ferber, head of day-shift for Detroit's Forensic Services. Sappy, this is Sara Sidle, Las Vegas crime lab. Sappy, we worked the Hilliard murder together, and she's also here as alternate for the evidentiary chain of custody." He summarized succinctly. Sara shoved the file box back into Nick's hands and put her own hand out to shake. Ferber grabbed her hand and shook enthusiastically, although there was no "spark" of sexual or romantic interest. Which was fine with Sara; there wasn't anything from her end, either.

"Pleased to meet you Ms. Sidle." He said with a smile. He then rubbed his hands together. "Well, let's get your other stuff and I'll take you out to breakfast. Early check-in at the hotel isn't til noon, but we can get a few things done before then, if you're up to it. Then I can drive you to the hotel you'll be staying at. I can chauffeur you around if you need, or we can requisition you a car from the DPD's motor pool."

"Motor pool, please." Sara said as they moseyed at a leisurely pace through the airport towards baggage claim. "We wouldn't want to inconvenience you having to drive us around everywhere."

"Well, the hotel's a little out of my way, but not bad. Still, you'll have a little more freedom this way." Mark replied.

They piled into Mark's "official" Ford Expedition. They put their bags in the back, but Nick hung onto the box of evidence.

"Nick said you were a frat brother of his." Sara said as Mark drove through the empty streets. "But I went to college in Boston, and I recognize a little bit of the accent when you talk. So how'd you end up here?" 

"Well, you're right" Mark told her, "I worked in Boston for ten years after I got out of Texas A & M. Then, about three months ago, I was recruited by a head-hunter to come here. See, Michigan has a lot of lakes and rivers, and my first specialty in botany is actually marine biology. In fact, I still keep my diving certs current. For that matter, you've got Nicky here to thank for my being in forensics at all. He knew I loved to solve puzzles, and suggested I give it a try." 

"So, are the rumors of corruption out of the mayor's office true?" Sara asked, point blank. Mark fidgeting a little uncomfortably. 

"I'm not in on any of that." He told her. "But there are some...problems here." Mark pointedly didn't go into detail, however. "Well, I'm a problem-solver as well as a puzzle-solver. Detroit's City Council and I figured I could handle it." Mark shrugged with studied indifference. "So...I'm handling it. And not too badly, either." He finished with a trace of pride. "Anyway...well, this is my home now, and I'm too new here to want to risk rocking the boat by blabbing anything I don't know the truth about anyway. As for any other rumors...I'll only say you shouldn't believe everything you hear. Like everyplace, there are bad apples here, but not everyone in Detroit is corrupt or lazy. I've got some really good people working in the lab." Then he grinned. "Let me tell you about the first case I worked on when I got here..."

After breakfast, Mark dropped off Sara at the Motor Pool to get a vehicle for the duration of their stay, then continued on into the lab with Nick. There, a beautiful forty-ish woman with classic Greek features, her white lab coat covering a stylish green business suit, was staring at a computer screen, on which was displayed a fingerprint. The computer was working on trying to find a match.

"You're here early." Mark said. She did not look up. Rolling his eyes in exasperation, knowing what would penetrate her concentration, he said,

"Stanley, I'd like you to meet Nick Stokes from the Las Vegas Crime Lab. He's got the file box from the Hilliard/Ditmer case." That got her attention. She raised her dark eyes from the monitor to look at the two men, however, her gaze immediately latched onto the file box under Nick's arm.

"Oh, good." She said excitedly, and homed straight in to the box, grabbing it from him and shoving it onto a cluttered counter-top. She grabbed the forms from Nick's other hand, hurriedly signed them, and shoved them back at the bemused Las Vegas criminalist. Then she opened the box.

"Your name is Stanley?" Nick tried to get her attention.

"That's what I'm called." She answered absently as she rummaged through the box.

"Why?" Nick tried again.

"Because it's better." She stated dismissively. Stanley finally found what she was looking for: a computer disc with a clear scan of a partial fingerprint found in Hilliard's bathroom which had not matched anyone normally supposed to be in the house. At the same time, Mark suddenly snapped his fingers.

"Clothes." He muttered, hurriedly signed a form, shoved it back at Nick, and dug into the file box as enthusiastically as Stanley had. He pulled out an evidence bag with the victim's clothing in it, and dropped the lid back on the box.

"Hey, Nick, you want to wait here, or come see what I might come up with?" Mark asked, as if he didn't know. Sure enough, Nick waved him off, staring at the beautiful not-wearing-a-wedding-ring-or-sporting-a-tan-line woman. Excited at her find however, Stanley strode briskly back to the computer terminal, fed in the disc, and brought up two images: the one just fed in, and the one she'd been working on before, from the Ditmer case. 

"Better than what?" Nick asked her, still trying to get her attention, but genuinely curious. However, before she could answer, the computer beeped back a response.

"Yes!" Stanley said with great satisfaction. "Bathroom sink, meet warehouse door. I'm sure you two will get along just fine, because you have something in common."

"A matched set of fingerprints?" Nick said, hopefully.

"You got it." She told Nick with a brilliant smile. "The print found in the Hilliard house matches the one found on the warehouse door where Ditmer was killed. Take a look." Stanley told him, moving aside. Nick moved in, a little closer than was strictly necessary to see the screen, carefully comparing the images, as if even the computer's assurance wasn't enough. Sure enough, however, the fingerprints matched.

"We have physical evidence that the two cases are related."

  


Meanwhile, Mark was setting up shop in one of the "white" rooms, which had a large table with a roll of wide, white paper attached to one side and drawers with various paperwork in it. The room also contained various cutting and examining tools in a wall cabinet, a counter with chemicals, microscopes and attendant paraphernalia, and a very bright ceiling light. Mark slid the paper from the roll over the table, covering it completely. Then he put on a pair of gloves from a box in a drawer in the counter, then carefully opened the package over the table, so as not to lose anything that might be loose in the bag. He pulled the contents out - a blue dress shirt - and carefully spread it out on the table. Then he took a magnifying glass, and carefully went over the shirt inch by inch, starting with the neck and working his way around to the back. There, on the back of the neck, Mark found what he was looking for: pollen spores. Two different kinds.

Mark grabbed two swabs and two slides from the counter, and used the swabs to deposit samples of the pollens onto the slides. Then he took a bottle of sterile water from the rack on the countertop, and squirted a drop on each slide. He placed covers on both slides, and put first one slide, then the other, under the microscope.

"I'll be damned!" Mark exclaimed, glad that, when he'd found out about the Las Vegas connection, he'd done some reading up on the plant life found in and around that area - especially the endangered species, a personal interest of his.

"What have you got?" A female voice asked. Mark jerked upright, startled. He hadn't realized anyone else was there, but Stanley, Nick, and Sara all stood just inside the doorway.

"Sorry." Stanley told him. "We came to give you some info, but didn't want to interrupt you."

"What info?" Mark asked.

"We have a fingerprint match. Hilliard's bathroom sink to Ditmer's warehouse door."

"ID yet?"

"Nope. Apparently, this guy was never arrested or served in the military."

"Damn." Mark muttered.

"So what have _you_ got?" Sara asked.

"Oh, yeah!" Mark remembered. "Looks like we've caught a break. Actually, we've gotten really, really lucky."

"Why's that?" Nick asked.

"I found pollen on Hilliard's shirt. They match pollen on Ditmer's shirt, too, by the way, but, anyway, the pollen I found was for arctomecon californica - the Las Vegas Bearpoppy. It's an endangered plant, and guess where one of the two or three places in the world that it's found is."

"Gee, let me guess." Sara said, smiling. "Could it be...Las Vegas?"

"You get a gold star." Mark replied, also smiling. "I also found another pollen on both men's clothes. Mimulus glabratus michiganensis. Also known as the Michigan Monkey-flower."

"My turn to take a guess." Nick said, grinning. "It's an endangered plant only found in Michigan, right?"

"Better than that." Mark told them all. "It's only found in a couple of places in the northern lower and southern upper penninsula."

"Hmm. So our killer has been or is from either of those two specific places." Stanley mused.

"More than likely."

"But that still doesn't help us much." Nick pointed out. "Lots people live there." Mark thought about it a moment.

"Ok, looks like we need some help to narrow down the search. Come with me."

  


Act III

  


They went to Mark's office.

"Still color-coding your plants, eh, Sappy?" Nick asked with a grin.

The office contained living plants in various kinds and sizes of pots, but Sara noticed that there were plants in pots of several shades of blue in one cluster, some red-hued pots in another grouping, and three different colors of yellow pots in still another spot. 

"Color coding?" Sara asked.

"Yeah," Nick told her. "He always color-coded his plants by genus or family. Belladonna in the blue pots, red pots were, um, three-awned grasses, right? Like that."

Mark looked sheepish. "Easier to remember them that way." He said with a shrug. The office also contained dried plants and parts of plants tacked on white boards or in jars or other containers, and diagrams and charts of plants on the walls. There were also a couple of press-board bookshelves with books on forensics, botany, and biology, and several boxes yet to be unpacked. And all this stuffed into a small, otherwise sterile, white room with a putty-colored metal desk and an old, beat-up, brown vinyl sofa. But, this office was neatly arranged; even the boxes were stacked in corners out of the way. And, also unlike Grissom's office, at least this office had a window. Even though it only had a view of a brick wall.

Over the intercom, Mark had requested that a Doctor Bollinger report to his office. Barely had the others sat down than a lanky, blond youth, with pencil-thin beard and mustache scraps to help make him look a bit older, stuck his head in the door.

"You rang, boss?" The young man inquired with a grin.

"Yes, come on in." Mark said. He indicated the Las Vegas criminalists. "This is Nick Stokes and Sara Sidle from the Las Vegas crime lab." He told the younger man. "They're here on the Hilliard/Ditmer case." The blond studied them both out of intelligent blue eyes that had a surprisingly mature intensity for so young-looking a man. "Nicky, Sara, this is Doctor Zachary Bollinger. He's a forensic psychologist."

"Profiler." Sara said, with a bit of disdain.

"Something wrong with that?" Zach asked, eyebrows raised but with a grin on his face.

"Well, yeah." Sara answered. "Look, no offense, but we prefer to follow the physical evidence. I mean, people lie. Evidence doesn't." Bollinger folded his arms across his chest, and gazed at her with curiosity. This wasn't the reaction he usually got; generally, it was his young looks people had a problem with.

"Well," Zach explained. "That's true. People _do_ lie. But science doesn't. And psychology _is_ a science. People behave according to certain rules - even the crazy ones have a logic and pattern to their craziness, even if sane people have a problem accepting them. And profiling can help figure out their motives so you know who - or at least what kind of person - you're looking for. I'm sure you've probably used the technique yourselves, even if you didn't realize that was what you were doing - trying to get inside the perpetrator's head and figure out _why_ they did what they did - in order to figure out what they're going to do next."

"He's right, Sara." Nick couldn't help but agree. "We all do it. Especially Grissom and Catherine. And it does help. We solve most of our crimes that way; a combination of following the evidence and figuring out the motives." Sara said nothing more.

"Zach, we've got some evidence, but we need to narrow down our suspect base." Mark told the young man.

"What've ya got?" Zach said, curious, as he sat on the corner of Mark's desk. Mark raised an eyebrow at Zach's casualness, but there were no other seats to be had, so he said nothing.

"We have two murders. Victim number one was attacked in his own home, strangled unconscious, dragged with difficulty up the stairs, tied to his own bed, and had his scrotum and right ring finger cut off while he was conscious. The culprit used the guy's own kitchen knife. He was allowed to bleed to death. His fraternity ring was then stolen. Victim number two was attacked in his car on his way home from a party. He was strangled unconscious, driven to a warehouse prepared ahead of time, again dragged in with difficulty, and tied to some pipes. Then, while conscious, his scrotum and right ring finger was cut off. The perpetrator had previously broken into the victim's home to steal his fraternity ring and some things used to arrange the murder: a knife, and duct tape to gag him with.

Both victims were wealthy. One was a high-priced divorce lawyer, the other a plastic surgeon. Both were generally thought of a jerks by the people who knew them, but very good at their jobs. Their alma mater was the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Psi Delta Epsilon fraternity. Victim number one attended from nineteen ninety-four through ninety-nine. Victim number two was there from ninety-one through ninety-nine. There was no record of anything unusual happening at the college at the time. Our perpetrator left pollen on both victims: one from a plant found only around Las Vegas, the other from a plant found in northern Michigan."

Through-out the recitation, Zach listened with almost unnerving intensity. When Mark was done, Zach stared off into space for several moments. Mark was content to simply wait. It went on long enough, however, that the others began to get fidgety. Sara, especially.

"Hey, Doctor." She said, finally. "Can you figure this out, or what?" Zach looked at her as if she was an unidentifiable moldy something he'd just found in his refrigerator. Then he raised his eyebrows at her.

"Your perpetrator is a woman." Zach answered her. "And just because there was no record of anything unusual happening at the college, doesn't mean nothing happened. Whatever it was, may have only been important to the person it happened to." He addressed all of them, then. "These are revenge killings. Most probably a woman, Caucasian, possibly an older woman, but not necessarily; she might just be small and not very strong. She's probably not highly intelligent, but has common sense or cleverness, and a television cop-show-viewer's knowledge of forensics. She strangles her victims because it's an easily controllable method of rendering them unconscious; she doesn't hit them over the head, because if she hits too hard she kills them, but if she doesn't hit hard enough, she doesn't knock him out. So she strangles them just til they're out, then lets up. She's cutting off their right ring fingers for the obvious reason: because that's where they wore their fraternity rings, when they did wear them. Care to guess why she's cutting off their scrotums?" He asked Sara directly. Sara sighed.

"She was the victim of a sex crime?"

"No," Nick answered. "If that were the case, then wouldn't she cut off their johnsons?"

"Yes." Zach replied. "She's not doing it because of anything sexual. Well, not directly sexual, anyway. What's a man's testicles representative of?"

"Masculinity?" Nick asked, but Zach shook his head.

"Courage or guts." Stanley said with a _Eureka!_ expression on her face.

"Yes." Zach told her with a grin. "She's saying he's got no balls, and no right to his fraternity ring." Mark looked startled, then.

"Wait!" He said, thinking it through. "This is about a pledge who didn't make the cut, isn't it? She's probably the mother or girlfriend or even the wife of somebody who was told he didn't have the balls to be in the fraternity!" Sara looked startled at that.

"Would somebody kill for something like that?" She asked, disbelieving.

"Yes, they would." Nick told her. "Some fraternities are pretty powerful, both at the college and elsewhere. Politically, or in certain professional circles, for instance. Being a member of some fraternities can make a person big man on campus, and even make or break a career."

  


Those team members left behind in Las Vegas were not idle, either. And that was the problem. Nick had called in when he'd discovered the fraternity angle, but nothing could be done about it that late at night, and with so little information. He called in again that morning to let them know the results of the bull-session with Dr. Bollinger. Unfortunately, Catherine and Warrick were tied up on a case - a traffic accident involving four cars and two guns - that they couldn't put aside because the media was screaming about it. And day-shift was at least as busy.

Which was how Catherine ended up in the lab with a yawning Greg Sanders. The spiky-haired chemist didn't often work overtime, but Catherine had asked him to help out on the Hilliard/Ditmer case.

"We're tapped out here, Greggo," she was saying, "and I know you'd like to get more involved in working out in the field, so, I thought you might like an assignment. I have to warn you, though, it's going to be tedious."

"And precision lab work isn't?" Greg told her. "Just what part of going through twenty samples looking for a single chemical marker do you think is not tedious?" Catherine smiled.

"Ok, in that case, I need you to go out to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, get the admissions records for nineteen ninety-four through ninety-nine, and look for a guy who came from the northern part of Michigan."

"And how will I know which part of–oh, duh, by the area code of their next of kin's phone number, of course." Greg asked and answered his own question. Catherine was impressed.

"Actually, I was going to say by the Zip code, but either one will work." Greg thought about it a moment. Yes, it was a tedious job, but, as he'd stated, so was lab work.

"Ok, I'll do it."

"That's our Greg." Catherine said as she clapped him on the shoulder, then turned and left the room to meet up with Warrick, "Faithful and courageous, our knight in shining–"

"Yeah, yeah," Greg called after her with a grin. "Let Tyra Banks know what a great guy I am, ok?"

And that is how Greg ended up at a computer terminal in the admissions office of the University, going through their records. It was, as Catherine had predicted, a tedious job. Boring, especially in the middle of a double shift.

Greg was relaxing on the beach. The sun was shining, and the surf was up, but Greg sat in a lounge chair, his surfboard standing upright in the sand beside him. Suddenly, the sun was occluded by a head. A human head. A very attractive, female human head.

"You're so wonderful, Greg." Tyra Banks purred in awe. "Working so hard to find the vital piece of evidence needed to crack the case of the century. Your name will be in all the headlines, you'll do guest appearances on the Letterman show - and I'll be at you side." Greg leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes blissfully.

"Mr. Sanders." Tyra said. "Mr. Sanders?" She called again. "Mr. Sanders!" She yelled.

"Mr. Sanders!" The portly, blue-haired, elderly admissions clerk yelled again. Greg opened his eyes to the disappointing sight. Then his eyes widened. He sat straight up as his gaze locked onto the computer screen, and the information displayed on it.

Martin Edelbrock. Admitted September 7th, 1998. Emergency contact: Ethel Edelbrock, Kingsley, Michigan.

  


"Edelbrock." Nick said over his cell-phone. "What's the address?" Nick pantomimed writing in mid-air. Mark immediately shuffled through papers on his desk until he came up with a pen and an unused piece of paper. Nick used it to write down the information Greg gave him.

Zach got on the computer to pull all the information available on Martin Edelbrock. While he was busy, the others all went out to lunch. They brought him back a deli sandwich, and they all gathered in the conference room - which was rather larger than Mark's office. Zach gave them his findings between bits of corned beef on rye.

"Martin Edelbrock, born April twenty-first, nineteen eighty. Admitted to University of Nevada, Las Vegas September, nineteen ninety-eight. Left November tenth, nineteen ninety-eight." Zach waited a beat before delivering the punch line. "Deceased December third, nineteen ninety-eight, ruled a suicide."

"He committed suicide because he didn't get into the fraternity." Stanley said, sickened. "I've heard of such things happening."

"So've I." Mark seconded. Zach added his agreement.

"So our culprit was a relative or something." Sara reiterated, thinking it through. "But...so why did she wait so long? I mean, it's been five years. Why not start killing them immediately?"

"Because she was in prison or something?" Nick wondered.

"Or maybe she was in the military?"

"Military's a four-year stint, not five." Stanley told them.

"Four years in the military, one year to find the members of the fraternity once she got out?" Nick asked.

"Not military or prison." Mark reminded them. "Remember, fingerprints not on file."

"Ok, scratch the military and the prison. So what prevented her from killing for five years?" Nick continued doggedly.

"Maybe we've got it backwards." Zach speculated. "What if it wasn't something that _prevented_ her from killing for five years, but something that _didn't _happen to _trigger_ her to kill?"

"Like what?" Sara asked.

"Could be anything. An anniversary, anything." Mark said. "But that may not be important right now. At the moment, we have a suspect. We need a search warrant of her home."

"You're hoping to find the fraternity rings." Sara said, smiling. Mark grinned back.

"Y'all up for a road trip?" Nick asked. 

  


Act VI

  


They could have more easily stayed where they were and let the Kingsley police handle everything, but Nick and Sara, at least, had too much time invested already, and were determined, now, to see it all the way through to the end. Besides, after having come over 2000 miles to get here, what was another 250 miles, give or take?

Mark and Stanley decided to see it through, too. Zach just thought the whole thing a great adventure, and elected to go, also.

Mark arranged for a police Cessna, and, the next morning, they flew to Traverse City. From there, they rented a mini-van and drove to Kingsley. All told, the trip took about two hours - as opposed to five by car.

During the flight, Nick took the opportunity to talk to Stanley.

"After this is over, would you like to go out to dinner with me?" Stanley took her first really good look at Nick, and liked what she saw very much.

"Sorry." Stanley sighed with genuine regret. "My sister and I take care of our invalid mother. I'm afraid I really can't." Nick was sympathetic.

"Not even for a little while?" He asked. "You could probably use the break."

"So could my sister." Stanley responded gently. Nick thought about it. But it was Mark who came up with a solution.

"I could watch your mother for a couple of hours to relieve your sister and let you go out." Stanley stared at him.

"You'd do that?" She asked, incredulously.

"Friends do." Mark told her. Stanley's grateful smile was all the incentive he needed.

  


Kingsley, Michigan is a small town built originally in the 1870's as a lumber community at the end of a railroad line. Sort of a suburb of Traverse City farther north, Kingsley has a population of less than 750 people.

The criminalists trooped into the Kingsley police department - a two-story brick building with institutional-green walls, which contained not only the police department, but also the fire department and circuit court - and explained the situation. The police chief, Rutherford Boyd, had been a bit skeptical, at first, claiming the evidence against Ethel Edelbrock a bit flimsy, although he admitted the woman was a bit...unstable...since her son's suicide.

"She had big plans for him." Boyd told Mark. "He was 'supposed' to become a high-priced lawyer. After the fraternity turned him down, the pricks, he came back here. But he was so depressed, and his mother just bitched all the time about it, he finally just...snapped. He mother found him hanging in his room one day." Mark digested the information as he recited it to the others.

"Do you have any idea how angry she might have been at the guys in the fraternity that turned Martin down?" Boyd snorted.

"Hell, yea." Boyd told the Botanist. "She was livid. Kept on and on about the bastards that told her son he didn't have the cojones to make it as a cut-throat lawyer, and all about how they weren't half the man her son was...actually, truth was, they was probably right. Martin wasn't exactly a shark. Too much a mama's boy, too, for that matter."

"But Martin died in December of nineteen ninety-eight. If she's our killer, why would she wait five years to start killing the members of the fraternity?" Mark wondered aloud.

"Wait," Nick said, "He was born April twenty-first, remember?"

"The date of Thomas Hilliard's murder." Sara said.

"But why five years later?" Zach asked.

"Who knows?" Sara said. "Who cares? We can always ask her after we arrest her."

"If she's our murderer. There's always the chance that we're wrong." Mark cautioned.

"We'll find out soon enough." Nick added.

  
  


Rutherford Boyd led the way to the Edelbrock residence. He pulled his SUV off to the side, at the bottom of a long, curved, dirt driveway, which was situated at the end of a dirt road way out in the boonies, on a piece of land that was mostly mucky bog. He held up the search warrant for them to see, then separated the visitors into pairs, and put them with his own men. Mark and Sara ended up with a Sergeant Homer Farron, Nick and Zach followed Sergeant Preston Salzberg, and Stanley went with Boyd.

Mark, Sara, and Homer went around to cover the back of the house. As they slunk through the undergrowth, however, Mark suddenly held up a hand to halt their progress.

"Sara, stop." He said quietly.

"What, why?" Sara asked, although she did stop moving.

"Move a couple steps to your right." She did so.

"Ok, why did I do that?" Mark pointed at the ground where she'd been about to step. Or rather, at a small, yellow flower.

"Michigan Monkey Flower." He stated. "Endangered species." Homer rolled his eyes in exasperation, but Sara said nothing. The little yellow flower was what had helped break this case, after all.

Around the front of the house, Boyd and Stanley knocked at the front door. A tired-looking, older woman in a faded print dress answered. Her greying brown hair was pulled back in an untidy knot at the back of her head, and she stared at them with what seemed to be a perpetually sour expression.

"Chief Boyd." She greeted the man suspiciously.

"Mizz Edelbrock." He replied neutrally. "This is...er..." He glanced at Stanley, only just realizing he hadn't actually been formally introduced to her.

"Adamanthea Paraskevopolous, Detroit Forensic Services." Stanley replied.

"Uh, yeah, that." Boyd said, bemused. "We'd like to take a look around your house, if that's ok, ma'am."

"What for?" Ethel asked, openly nervous.

"We're looking for fraternity rings from the Psi Delta Epsilon fraternity." Ethel snorted.

"They deserved to die, the ball-less bastards." She told them angrily.

"Who said anything about anyone being dead?" Stanley asked the older woman.

"I did! Heard about it on the news." Ethel told her with a nasty look.

"Ma'am, we'd like to search the house." Boyd returned to the main subject doggedly.

"And what if I said no?" Ethel said snidely. Boyd sighed.

"Well, then, I guess we'd have to serve you with this search warrant giving us permission to search the house anyway."

"No!" Ethel yelled, then slammed the door in their faces. They heard the lock click. Boyd glanced at Stanley, who shrugged.

"Suspect is being uncooperative." Boyd rapidly reported to his other men via radio. "She might attempt to flee." Then he stepped back, and kicked hard against the door, right below the doorknob. It took two more tries before the lock gave, and the door swung open. Boyd and Stanley hurried into the house. They heard someone moving around upstairs, and ran after.

In the meantime, Nick and Zach followed Sergeant Salzberg towards the garage, against the possibility there might be someone else around. When Boyd's radio message came, however, the three men ran back to the house, rushed up onto the front porch, and on in. They ended up entering right behind Boyd and Stanley. They heard yelling and thumping noises coming from upstairs, and started towards them, but, just as they reached the bottom of the stairs, an older woman came barrelling down the upstairs hall to the staircase. However, she tripped on the second from top stair, and came crashing down, hard. Zach made a credible attempt to catch the woman, but only got to her as she reached the bottom. By then it was too late. Ethel's head lolled impossibly limply from her neck. Kneeling on the floor beside her, he felt for a pulse. He looked up at Boyd and Stanley at the top of the stairs, and shook his head.

  


EPILOGUE

  


It took the rest of the day to process the house and the paperwork in Kingsley.

Ethel Edelbrock had the two missing fraternity rings clenched in her fist. She also had the two knives, still bloody, wrapped in a pillowcase and hidden under the mattress of what they discovered was Martin's former bedroom, kept as an obvious shrine to her deceased son. Of her reason for waiting five years before beginning her murder spree, there was no sign or record.

It took another day to get back to Detroit, process the paperwork there, and get the Hilliard file box back together along with all the accompanying forms.

  


Stanley and Mark drove Nick and Sara to the airport two days after Ethel Edelbrock's death.

"You didn't have to do it, you know. You weren't obligated." Nick told Stanley quietly, so that the others couldn't hear. He didn't just mean coming with them to the airport.

"I know. But I wanted to." Stanley replied, smiling, meaning the same thing Nick did. Nick smiled back.

"Well, if you're ever in Las Vegas, look me up." Nick told her. They both knew it would take a tragedy - personal or professional - for that to happen, and Nick wanted her to know he'd help, whichever the circumstance.

"Thank you." Stanley replied to the unspoken assurance.

"Nick, great to see you again." Mark said, holding out a hand to shake goodbye, but Nick was having none of it. He pulled the other man into another back-slapping hug.

"Let's try to make it less than eleven years til we meet in person again, ok?" He said.

"Deal." Mark agreed. Sara shook hands with both Detroit criminalists. They walked through the tube towards their plane. Mark and Stanley both watched the plane take off through the big window nearby.

Then they both turned and walked away.

  
  


THE END

  
  
  
  


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